Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Historic Environment

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was merge to Australia ICOMOS. This decision does not rule out the ability for Australia ICOMOS (and thereby the content in Historic Environment) to be deemed as unfit for the encyclopedia at a later date. — Coffee // have a cup // essay // 09:18, 2 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Historic Environment[edit]

Historic Environment (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Non-notable journal. Claimed to be "the pre-eminent publication on heritage conservation in Australia", but there is no independent source for that (and in any case, how many such publications will there be in Australia?) Not indexed in any selective databases (nor, as far as I can see, in any other database). According to WorldCat held in 80 libraries worldwide, which is decidedly less than stellar. On talk page of article an anti-Australian bias is claimed to explain the lack of indexing. This is demonstrably false, Thomson Reuters indexes no less than 86 journals with the word "Australian" in their title and the journal is not indexed in any non-TR databases either. The only remaining claim for notability is a ranking obtained in the 2010 Australian Excellence in Research for Australia exercise. Note that this journal ranking was abandoned in the 2012 exercise. Given the lack of indexing and independent sources, this does not meet WP:NJournals or WP:GNG, hence: Delete. Randykitty (talk) 07:15, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Strongly support keeping this article. Australia ICOMOS is highly regarded in Australia and its Historic Environment has been the primary publication for matters of heritage conservation in Australia for over 30 years. This is demonstrated by the number of references to articles in the journal and its role in publishing the major conservation conference in Australia. Historic Environment commenced at a time when the heritage conservation movement was in its infancy in Australia, and has documented its growth and maturation. WorldCat lists it in over 80 libraries world wide which is high for an Australian journal. This includes all of the Australian state libraries and major Australian and New Zealand university libraries. WP:NJournals states "one can also look at how frequently the journal is held in various academic libraries (this information is available in Worldcat." Australia is a small realm - 24 million people - where heritage conservation has had a higher relative status than in many countries. The significance of the Burra Charter - one of the few local ICOMOS charters to be developed from the Venice Charter is indicative of this. Historic Environment has played a major role in this process. It is wrong to suggest that Excellence in Research for Australia has been abandoned as the next round of assessment is in 2015. ERA is after-all the only concerted attempt to rank Australian academic publications in the humanities in Australia. The ERA 2012 Journal List includes Historic Environment as a "journal that [is] eligible for institutions’ ERA 2012 submissions – that is, scholarly, peer reviewed journals that publish original research and were active during the ERA 2012 reference period for research outputs (1 January 2005 – 31 December 2010)".[1] Thomson Reuters and the other the 'major indexing services' are much more focussed on sciences and US/Europe areas of scholarship - again a consequence of the Tyranny of Distance experienced in Australia. I know that Google searches don't count, but a tight search on ISSN0726-6715 produces over 700 results, while <"Historic Environment" "Australia ICOMOS" -wikipedia> produces over 8000 results. There are also ten other Wikipedia articles on diverse subjects which cite Historic Environment as a major source and many more in the reflists links of other articles. Keep Garyvines (talk) 09:26, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment If this journal is indeed so highly regarded, then there should be sources documenting this. They can certainly be local (i.e. Australian). When I check Google Scholar (clicking the link above), I don't see lots of citations to this journal. Thomson Reuters is not just focused on the sciences, they also have the Arts and Humanities Citation Index, which contains 8 Australian journals. Besides Thomson Reuters, there are more specialized selective databases, none of those carry the journal either. The Australian ERA ranked journals in 2010, which is mentioned in the article on Historical Environment, the ERA was not abandoned, of course, but the ranking was. All the assessment says is that this is a repectable journal (which nobody denies), but respectable does not equal notable. Number of times cited by WP or Ghits are indeed absolutely irrelevant here. --Randykitty (talk) 10:57, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • In support of not deleting this article, I would like to point out that Historic Environment is catalogued by the Australian Public Affairs Information Service (APAIS). This is another, Australian focused index service which is widely used by those interesting in the social sciences and humanities in Australia. Wikipedia as an international encyclopaedia has a role in including noteworthy institutions, publications, ideas and things from around the world. I feel that removing information regarding Historic Environment and journals like it would decrease the usefulness of Wikipedia as a neutral repository notable ideas and information from around the world. There are third-parties who refer to this journal and regard it as notable enough to include in their index services. This Wikipedia article provides a useful place to summarise this information for others to refer to. Hence: Keep NickP86 (talk) 12:03, 22 October 2013 (UTC) — NickP86 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
  • I also strongly support this article. It seems to me ironic that the person going by the pseudonym "Randykitty" lists no qualifications on their personal page and in particular, nothing relevant to either Australia or the subject matter of the journal. In fact, other than 20,000 Wikipedia edits, Randykitty seems to have no authority in the matter. Put simply, in a debate over "regard" there is no reason to "regard" the opinions of the putative Randykitty any more than any other person. In my opinion, this is a debate in which, regrettably, perseverance rather than evidence will win. My suspicion is that, since Randykitty puts so much effort into Wikipedia, he/she/it will win due solely to persistence so an article which to me seems reasonable, indeed more so than many many others on Wikipedia, will be deleted. It is a bizarre form of bullying! Keep Sovsw (talk) 12:06, 22 October 2013 (UTC) — Sovsw (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
  • Unfortunately for you, it doesn't matter at all whether I know anything about Australia, the topic of this journal, or not. As far as you know, I could be the cleaning lady who just cleaned your toilet, or I could be the head of an academic department. Or a pimply teenager. It actually doesn't matter, WP is a community effort and nobody has any "authority" here. Instead, WP has policies and guidelines by which we go. The outcome of this discussion will be decided by an impartial, uninvolved administrator, who will judge based on the merit of policy-based arguments. Referring to other articles on WP that are putatively worse, is not an effective argument (we call that WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS). Attacking the nominator, instead of providing substantive arguments, is, I gingerly suggest, an even less effective strategy (see Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions). --Randykitty (talk) 12:54, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 13:08, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Australia-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 13:08, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I can't see why the ERA 2010 Ranking, RMIT's Australian Heritage Bibliography indexing and the WorldCat listing in 80 libraries is not sufficient to demonstrate notability. WP:NJournals says "...that the journal is included in the major indexing services in its field". In the absence of more comprehensive indexing and ranking for Australian humanities journals, and the acknowledged inadequacies of the citation indices - for example: "For journals in humanities, the existing citation indices and GoogleScholar often provide inadequate and incomplete information." then the Australian sources should be sufficient. There is no threshold described in WP:NJournals for library inclusion, which is just based on the statement "...one can also look at how frequently the journal is held in various academic libraries", so it cannot be said that inclusion in 80 libraries "...is decidedly less than stellar". Considering that these include all the major State and University Libraries in Australia, then the Journal must be considered something essential to the field. Again, Australia is a small country so notability in this realm will have lower numbers than in the 20 times larger US.Garyvines (talk) 13:56, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The ERA ranking of journals was a one-time exercise and obviously not satisfactory, as it has been abandoned. I see no evidence that the Australian Heritage Bibliography is selective. 80 libraries, even for a humanities journal, is not huge. Most of these libraries will not, in fact, have a subscription to the journal itself, but to the AHB and hence to all the journals that it includes. So they list it in their catalogues. In addition, several of the WorldCat entries seem to be outdated/incorrect. Try clicking on some of those libraries and then search their catalogue for the journal. So far, I haven't found a library yet that actually carries it. --Randykitty (talk) 14:12, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment On your last point - the first few libraries I checked indicate they indicate copies of the journal are on shelf [2]; [3]; [4]; [5] so I don't know why you claim most of these... will not ... have subscriptions, similarly I don't see why the ERA ranking should be entirely dismissed. Is was a concerted effort by the Australian Research Council to rank academic journals, and it resulted in Historic Environment obtaining the highest ranking. The ARC is the top body setting standards for research and handing out most of the research grant funding in Australia, and its judgement should not be dismissed so lightlyGaryvines (talk) 15:28, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • HE did not get the highest ranking (A*), but was on the second rank (A). Obviously, the ERA ranking was unsatisfactory, hence it was abolished. As for the libraries, I clicked the first four or five that WorldCat showed for Australia. --Randykitty (talk) 16:25, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • My apologies on the mistake about rank level. It is not obvious, however, that the ERA ranking was completely unsatisfactory or that the rank given to Historic Environment was undeserved, as it is still referred to in their web site and the 2015 consultation process is underway, and looks like taking up a new modified ranking procedure. Garyvines (talk) 01:16, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge and Redirect to Australia ICOMOS. I could not find multiple reliable sources for this journal/magazine. RMIT's Australian Heritage Bibliography indexing point towards notability. I think we need to be careful of systemic bias here; it is possible that the magazine is notable as "a significant publication in a non-trivial niche market, per Wikipedia:WikiProject Magazines#Notability item number 5. For this reason, Keep is OK by me as well. But I don't know enough about this magazine to be able to confidently assert a keep. What I do know is that the magazine is easily verifiable. Per WP:PRESERVE, we should try to preserve verifiable information rather than delete it. This magazine is produced by Australia ICOMOS and already has a short paragraph there; it seems the best target. The title is somewhat generic, but as the proper title of the magazine, I think a redirect is warannted. --Mark viking (talk) 17:32, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support the retention of this article. Firstly, it is not a magazine it is a journal. Secondly, it seems that the editor Randykitty has a vindictive attitude and has set some absurd barriers to this journal being even mentioned in Wikipedia and I would like to report them in some way for their unreasonable attitude and request a more nuanced editing. This move to delete is clearly initiated once they were criticised for their attitude on this and other forums. I feel that what was a fairly inoffensive article has been pounced upon by the full weight of the incomprehensible wikipedia bureaucracy prompted by an editor with "a bee in their bonnet".
The ERA Ranking is a good indication especially as it was the only Australian based ranking and one that took in journals from the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. There were other reasons for abandoning the ERA as well. Historic Environment like most academic journals in this particular field suffers from the fact that the rankings and H indexing process is focussed on the science field and on journals owned by mega publishers (who often also run the rankings system and the citation indexes). Journals that are not in these areas have been ignored for years (Google Scholar for example initially was biased towards journals in the Sciences)and this was one of the real reasons why the ERA ranking was criticised - it did not fairly represent all fields of academic excellence.
Are there other ways of establishing notability that can be used in this case? KEEP. Iain Stuart (talk) 20:27, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yep, sure Iain, I'm notorious around here for my unreasonable and vindictive attitude. You can file a report on my absurd editing here. Regarding your other arguments: I have shown above quite convincingly that several reputable databases do include academic journals other than scientific ones and have no demonstrable bias against Australian journals in particular. If they have any bias, it's against journals that are not published in English. Besides Thomson Reuters, there are many other selective databases. Inclusion in them can also make a journal notable, TR is not the only reputable one. Scopus, for example, also includes many journals from the arts, humanities, and social sciences. --Randykitty (talk) 21:01, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - for all of the canvassing, SPAs, personal attacks, ad-hom nastiness and WP:OSE, I'm struggling to find a coherent argument for keeping this article. The article itself is promotional and little of that promotion is supported by reliable sources. The indexing rates seem lower than we would normally expect from even "niche" industry/academic journals. I certainly couldn't find anything by way of significant coverage in multiple reliable sources to allow it to pass WP:GNG. Merge seems sensible but I have serious doubts about the notability of Australia ICOMOS per WP:ORGDEPTH so what would be the point of that? Stalwart111 21:47, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • If by 'canvassing' you are referring to my comments to Iain Stuart‎ and PeterMarquisKyle‎, these were the only Wikipedia editors I contacted, and both had previously provided their own opinions on Talk:Historic Environment, so I was in no way influencing them. I know both people as humans, and you might see that we all edit with our real names rather than an anonymous handle. On the actual topic of notability, I have carefully read the WP:NJournals criteria, and responded accordingly, and cannot fathom why the hardline interpretation is being taken by Randykitty and now yourself, when a reasonable interpretation suggests Historic Environment meets both the letter and intent of the notability criteria. To reiterate: - in respect of criterion "...one can also look at how frequently the journal is held in various academic libraries", Worldcat gives over 80 results. I have seen nothing to demonstrate that this is not a useful number, despite Randykitty saying it is "...decidedly less than stellar"; - ERA is an academic journal ranking system which rated Historic Environment highly; - the journal is indexed by RMIT's Australian Heritage Bibliography and APAIS; a bit of searching quickly finds many other sources which cite articles in Historic Environment.Garyvines (talk) 02:19, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I wasn't specifically, no. You posted those two comments, I raised those with you and you haven't posted anything like that since. What concerns me more (and perhaps I should have specified as much more clearly) is that there seems to be some major off-wiki canvassing going on. It would seem someone is getting in touch with their friends/colleagues and asking them to show up at Wikipedia to "save" the article. How else do you explain the sudden influx of random single-purpose accounts suddenly noticing the article or the AFD and seeking to comment? Such an influx is completely at odds with the article's page view statistics and the the basic laws of probability. Given the atrocious vitriol, non-policy-based arguments, ad-hominem and rampant WP:OSE (all of which is contrary to policies that most new editors are encouraged to read well before they first contribute to internal Wikipedia machinations like AFD) I think it's fair to assume that someone has reached for their heritage industry email list. Stalwart111 02:52, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Can we have some form of serious and professional review of this. If Historic Environment goes then so should all the articles on List of scientific journals.
Google Scholar is nowhere near a comparison to a government listing of peer reviewed publications. You have to add your work to google scholar. Mainly used by academics to demonstrate reasons for promotion. Maybe all the sportspeople should be taken down. There are degrees of notablity ... I would think a peer reviewed publication from an international professional body far exceeds someone who played 3 games of baseball. Everything, even "notablity" should be relative.
I used to be quite active in wiki. Adding information and sources and attempting to be constructive/ Wikipedia started off so nicely and now it is pythonesque "noone expects the spanish inquisition"/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gervo1865 (talk • contribs) 23:14, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you "used to be quite active in wiki" then you should be aware than none of the arguments you've presented are policy-based reasons for keeping this article and most of them are simply arguments that other stuff exists and so this article should too. It doesn't work that way. If you find other articles that also fail Wikipedia's inclusion guidelines you should free free to nominate those for deletion too. You all need to have a read of WP:MEAT. This is a "serious and professional review", hindered only by unprofessional commentary from some contributors. Stalwart111 01:33, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hmm, WP:MEAT also says "The term meatpuppet is derogatory and should be used with care ... it may be counterproductive to directly accuse someone of being a "meatpuppet", and doing so will often only inflame the dispute."Garyvines (talk) 02:25, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • It does, it is, it should be and I didn't call anyone a "meat-puppet". But if the shoe fits... I didn't come up with the term but it is the term that fits this situation and I referred contributors to the relevant part of the relevant policy. None of that disclaimer suggests we shouldn't enforce policy just because someone might be offended by the application of an accurate descriptor. Stalwart111 10:03, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have a PhD in Australian architectural history, I have been working for an Australian state government heritage office for 10 years and for the last 3 years I have been conducting an independent oral history project interviewing senior heritage practitioners in Australia and New Zealand for the National LIbrary of Australia. I would like to reiterate that Historic Environment is an excellent journal, the mouthpiece of Australia ICOMOS, which is the national chapter of the peak international society of heritage professionals, and it is a critical gathering point of heritage information for heritage practitioners in Australia. I haven't read all of Wikipedia's policies and protocols but it seems common sense to me that an entry notifying the public of the existence and usefulness of Historic Environment is appropriate. I can understand that it doesn't come up as an outstanding journal in the academic indexes because it is oritented at heritage practice rather than heritage theory. I would suggest that Historic Environment is actually widely read rather than cited. Bronwyn Hanna — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.3.232.28 (talk) 00:47, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • With respect, your personal (even professional) opinion about the usefulness of the subject is irrelevant. Existence is also not an inclusion criteria. You need to demonstrate notability which at the most basic level involves the subject having received significant coverage in multiple reliable sources. To be frank, it's frustrating to read commentary from people who "have a PhD" in which they admit they "haven't read all of Wikipedia's policies" but decide it is sensible to comment even when instructions at the top of every AFD (when you edit) make the point that these discussions are based on policy and guidelines. You accept this is a policy-based discussion but that your commentary is not policy-based - what, with respect, do you hope to achieve? Stalwart111 01:33, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The friendly introduction to this section above describes this as a "discussion" and invites comment, it does not state you have to be an expert on the Wikipedia policy manual to have a say. Surely your concern is with the integrity of the proposed entry and my comment is suggesting that the integrity of the entry and of Historic Environment itself may demonstrated by means other than academic indices, for example, that widespread industry admiration for the journal should be accorded some recognition even if that is not readily measured by your singular standard. The thing I like about Wikipedia, and defend it for in arguments in various forums, is its attempt to make a broader array of information/ knowledge available and accessible than for example was done or even possible with older compendiums of information/ knowledge such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Wikipedia should be making a concerted effort to retain this one of its key attributes. Bronwyn Hanna — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.3.232.28 (talk) 03:21, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The note above the editing window says (in part):

All input is welcome, though valid arguments citing relevant guidelines will be given more weight than unsupported statements; discussion guidelines are available.

You don't need to be an "expert", but making some attempt to familiarise yourself with guidelines would be a good idea. The issue is not with the "integrity" of the article but with the notability of the subject. Plenty of notable subjects are covered here with low-quality articles including (ironically) Australian heritage. That's why we encourage people to fix those problems. But no amount of editing will fix a lack of notability. "Widespread industry admiration for the journal" can be accorded some recognition if that recognition is detailed in reliable sources. Obviously Wikipedia can provide a broader range of information/knowledge than paper encyclopaedias, however, there is an important distinction between what can be done, and what should be done (WP:NOTPAPER). Stalwart111 04:25, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have had a go at a merged Australia ICOMOS/Historic Environment article. If editors consider this a more appropriate response to the debate, perhaps this can also be discussed.Garyvines (talk) 03:27, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or Merge (same thing for closing purposes). RK's research is excellent and a solid application of the rules. Props to Garyvines for working up a compromise solution. Shakes fist at the unnecessary personal attacks. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 06:10, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I still would like to see both Australia ICOMOS and Historic Environment kept as separate articles, and I still think Randykitty's dismissal of the Australian ranking, bibliographic and indexing is unreasonable, but if the final decision is merge, then the former might be replaced with the version in my sandbox Australia ICOMOS/Historic Environment. I suspect before long the notability evidence for historic Environement will be produced, either bythe next round of ARC rankings, some work to get the US based indexes to incorporate more Australian coverage, or some further coverage in other newsworthy sources. Garyvines (talk) 06:55, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • As above, I'm not sure that would solve the problem here. Doubling the size of the Australia ICOMOS to include information from Historic Environment doesn't fix the fact that much of that information remains without verification by independent reliable sources. The gushing article lede is sourced to the organsiation itself. Of course the organisation would say that about itself! We don't cover what organisations have said about themselves - we cover what other organisations, media outlets and people have said about them. If the organisation wants to say nice things about itself, it should do so elsewhere because Wikipedia doesn't exist for that purpose. I haven't seen any evidence of anyone saying anything about them, let alone significant coverage in independent reliable sources. Copy-pasting the content from one deleted article into another is not a particularly productive endeavour. I should tell you I'm giving serious consideration to nominating Australia ICOMOS for deletion too if editors can't step up to meet their WP:BURDEN and establish notability. Stalwart111 08:53, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • We rarely have articles on the national chapter of an international organization, because they rarely are independently notable. ICOMOS has a large number of such chapters and the best thing probably is to redirect the article on the Australian chapter there. --Randykitty (talk) 11:41, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So actually being an expert in the subject is not a criterion for having a valid opinion on this matter, surely this simply reinforces the stereotyped opinion of Wikipedia. Now RandyKitty out of pure vindictiveness is going to attack other articles where will it end. The problem here seems to be the high barriers set up by a self-opinionated "expert" editor who simply refuses to believe any evidence put forward. Usually I've found Wikipediua editors much more helpful and constructive working with people. One really unhelpful element is speed in which everything is happening as we all have real jobs and editing Wikipedia is something we do in our spare time. Iain Stuart (talk) 19:58, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Now RandyKitty out of pure vindictiveness is going to attack other articles" - Stop attacking people see WP:CIVIL. If you have evidence of WP:HOUNDing than open a case elsewhere. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 20:15, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Iain Stuart et al. For the last time: "opinions" don't count here. Neither has "notable" in the WP sense anything to do with "useful", "worthwhile", "deserving", or good or bad. What we need are sources. For the moment, the only indications of possible notability are the ERA ranking and the library holdings. I have given my take on this, you have all given your take on it. There's no need to keep re-hashing the same arguments over and over again, you're just making the job of the closing admin more difficult. That person will look at our arguments and based on those and Wikipedia policy come to a judgment. If he agrees with you, the article will be kept. If he thinks that the arguments for and against have about equal merit, the decision will be "no consensus" (which defaults to keep, deletion is intentionally made difficult, only for clear-cut cases). Only if the closing admin completely agrees with the arguments to delete the article will it, in fact, be deleted. You should have a little bit more trust in the process. It's the closin admin who will decide about deletion or not, not any of the participants to this discussion (including myself). I repeat that arguments have to be policy based and you'd do well to familiarize yourself with them, becuse otherwise you will be ignored. And as Green Cardamon told you just above, you should also read up on WP:CIVIL (and when you're at it, WP:NPA and WP:AGF). If you take a moment to read through the discussion above, you will see that I have been courteous throughout. I have pointed you to WP:ANI, where you can file a complaint about my behavior if you feel this is necessary. I have a thick skin and a lot of patience. However, there's an end to everything. The next time one of you casts doubt on my good faith or casts doubt on my integrity, I will file a complaint at ANI myself. You have been warned multiple times by multiple editors, you may regard this as a final warning. Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 21:01, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • OK, calm down everyone and concentrate on the job at hand - which is producing a worthwhile article about a notable subject (as in, it is notable outside of Wikipedia, but needs to be shown to be so inside WP) - I have addressed as many of the issues as I can in my proposed new combined article User:Garyvines/sandbox. From last night's comments above (I slept while you had a go at each other), I have the following to offer:- (1) "verification by independent reliable sources" is clear. There are 6: - National Trust Australia; Susan Thompson; Marta De la Torre, Getty Conservation Institute; Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, (an Australian Government department); Robert Bevan, The Australian newspaper; Samantha Fabry. (There are several other independent sources that refer to the journal availability but not notability). (2) "The gushing article lede (lead?)" has been reworded to "Australia ICOMOS is the peak cultural heritage conservation body in Australia. It is a branch of the United Nations-sponsored International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), a non-government professional organization promoting expertise in the conservation of cultural heritage.[1]" - it is the peak body, and this is substantiated in the reference and later in the article. (3) the statement "I haven't seen any evidence of anyone saying anything about them" is patentaly not true given the above sources; (4) In regards "rarely have articles on the national chapter of an international organization" - I have made the point above and in the original and proposed revised combined version of the article, that Austrlaia ICOMOS is a special case because of its role in developing the Burra Charter, and the promulgation of heritage expertise, policy and influence in other areas - references note China, Malta, and I have added the Phillipines and Ankor Wat to the list of Australia ICOMOS activities. (5) I accept that combining Australia ICOMOS and Historic Environment doesn't necessarily give any greater weight to either article, and the notability by association is not a criteria. However, given that HE is the source of much documentation about the activities of Australia ICOMOS, and the above arguement should establish its separate notability, then I think it reasonable to include the details of the journal here. ..Now, I have been the only one to edit these two articles to try and demonstrate notability, or search for the sources that might do so. The two antagonists on the other side of this debate have spent a fair bit of energy in trying to disprove notability. Several others have taken offence in the discussion to various things not connected to the purpose of editing good articles. If all this effort had gone ito writing for Wikipedia, then we would have something to be proud of. Now all go away, and have a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down. Garyvines (talk) 23:25, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to Australia ICOMOS with this draft as a base. I did have concerns about the notability of Australia ICOMOS which have now been more than adequately addressed by Garyvines in his draft. The Thompson and De la Torre sources (references 1 and 5 in his draft) are particularly good, I think, and establish the notability of the organisation in its own right without too much trouble. I've gone ahead and added GoogleBooks links for both sources for ease of referencing. I object to the characterisation that I "spent a fair bit of energy in trying to disprove notability" when in fact I simply quoted policy and guidelines and waited for supporters of the article to meet their WP:BURDEN as content creators here, but that's really a moot point now. As Gary suggests, there is a good deal of expertise among those who have been encouraged to "vote" here - if only their energy had been spent contributing to Wikipedia in useful ways...
I still don't think anyone has adequately established the notability of Historic Environment yet (and I don't think they will given the sources) but a short paragraph (not a replica of the old article copy-pasted) would not be a problematic addition to the article for the organisation that publishes it. Stalwart111 00:00, 24 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Merging the articles on "Historic Environment" and Australia ICOMOS sounds like a sensible compromise. With regards to establishing the notability of "Historic Environment", I'm not sure that the APAIS and the ERA 2010 journal list, which were mentioned earlier, are irrelevant to demonstrating the notability of a publication with independent lists.

Here are some comments on both lists, although perhaps they might better belong somewhere else (If one of the more experienced users could point me to somewhere in the Wikipedia essays and talk pages which might be relevant, I'd be much obliged.)

The APAIS is a selective list in that it only indexes Australian scholarly journals and related material. If the compliers of the index do not consider a journal 'scholarly' it is not listed. An example of an Australian journal which is peer-reviewed, but not listed in the APAIS (listed here) is the [http://www.aima-underwater.org.au/bulletin/ Bulletin of the Australasian Institute of Maritime Archaeology (apologies to my maritime archaeology friends).

The ERA 2010 journal list was controversial and dropped. However this was not because it listed too many journals as being of A* and A quality, but because it listed too few. To summarise the discussion from the time, some Australian ademics feared being forced to publish in particular journals in the future, or their past work not receiving the recognition they felt it deserved. A feel for the controversies of the time can be gained through reading articles like these:

The removal of rankings from the ERA list was announced in May 2011. The minister's media release, although in some ways a very political document, also makes it clear that the change to remove rankings from the journal list was on account of the abuses pointed out by these articles I've just referred to. The then Minister for Innovation, Kim Carr, said on 30 May 2011:

"There is clear and consistent evidence that the rankings were being deployed inappropriately within some quarters of the sector, in ways that could produce harmful outcomes, and based on a poor understanding of the actual role of the rankings. One common example was the setting of targets for publication in A and A* journals by institutional research managers." 'IMPROVEMENTS TO EXCELLENCE IN RESEARCH FOR AUSTRALIA'

Given this context and controversy, it seems understandable why Australia ICOMOS, as publishers of "Historic Environment" still mention their 2010 ERA ranking on 'their website', even though the list has been superseded for over 2 years. I hope that this clarifies how the APAIS and the 2010 ERA rankings are indeed independent, selective sources which recognise the importance of scholarly publications in Australia. NickP86 (talk) 13:00, 24 October 2013 (UTC) merge like above. MarioNovi (talk) 22:46, 24 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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